Artists in the Photo League, active from 1936 to 1951, were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life. Their focus centered on New York City and its vibrant streets—a newsboy at work, a brass band on a bustling corner, a crowded beach at Coney Island. Though beautiful, the images harbor strong social commentary on issues of class, child labor, and opportunity. The Radical Camera explores the fascinating blend of aesthetics and social activism at the heart of the Photo League, tracing the group's left-leaning roots and idealism to the worker-photography movement in Europe. Influenced by mentors Lewis Hine, Berenice Abbott, and Paul Strand, artists in the Photo League worked within a unique complex comprising a school, a darkroom, a gallery, and a salon, in which photography was discussed as both a means for social change and an art form. The influence of the Photo League artists on modern photography was enormous, ushering in the New York School.
Presenting 150 works of the members of the Photo League alongside complementary essays that offer new interpretations of the League's work, ideas, and pedagogy, this beautifully illustrated book features artists including Margaret Bourke-White, Sid Grossman, Morris Engel, Lisette Model, Ruth Orkin, Walter Rosenblum, Aaron Siskind, W. Eugene Smith, and Weegee, among many others.
For over six years, photographer Michele Zousmer was welcomed into the Irish Traveller community while she photographed, built friendships, and learned about this unique group of people. The resulting book, Mis[s]Understood (Daylight Books, November, 2024), looks at the population as a whole but particularly focuses on the role of females within the culture. Zousmer captures the pride and tenacity of this marginalized community and the daily life struggles and discrimination that the Irish Traveller people endure in Ireland.
Drawn to the ineffable and the curious nature of the real, DeLuise works with a large-format 8x10 camera to produce luminous imagery that explores the visual complexities and everyday poetry of contemporary experience through portraiture, landscape, and still life. DeLuise is moved by the photograph’s uncanny ability to embody the depth and richness of human perception and experience. Her images reveal a great love of the medium, an embrace of light, circumstance, and the beauty and mystery of the quotidian. Emphasizing the etymological root of the word photography as drawing with light, and the collaborative nature of making photographs, The Hands of My Friends represents four decades of elegant and tender images.
For decades, photographer Kate Sterlin has made an artistic practice of examining the boundaries between individual, family, and community. In her first book, Still Life: Photographs & Love Stories, she uses intimacy in all its forms to tell a story of life, death, family, and race in America. Pairing lyrical photography with poetic writings, Still Life is a dreamlike narrative examining kinship and romance, friendships and tragedies, the complexities of Black identity, and personal and generational loss across a lifetime. It is a testament to one artist's commitment to creation and a profound blend of the personal and the universal.
A new photobook, by photographer Juan Brenner, explores the people and culture of the Guatemalan Highlands.
Genesis, published by Guest Editions, is the culmination of five years' work, in which Brenner documented the Highland area and people of his home country.
With a focus on youth culture in the region, Brenner captures a new generation of Guatemalans, the first to establish an intelligible dialogue with their contemporaries around the world.
In the ongoing evolution of my artistic journey, I find myself engaged in a profound process of self-examination, mental health and sadness - using the camera to explore the essence of who I am and my connection to the art of photography. My roots lie in a small town. Within this space, I grappled with a pervasive sense of loneliness that transcended both the physical boundaries and the emotional confines of my surroundings. Even in the company of others, I felt a profound solitude that echoed within and beyond those walls.
'Work in Progress' is a powerful exploration of Peter Essick's four-year journey capturing aerial photographs of construction sites across the Atlanta Metro area. This body of work offers a dynamic portrayal of human-altered landscapes, where the clash between nature and man-made structures creates a stunning visual narrative. Essick's unique perspective, gained through low-level drone flights, has revealed the ever-changing beauty of construction sites—spaces that are often overlooked or dismissed as mundane.
Aperture announces the release of Robert Frank:
The Americans, marking the centennial of Frank’s birth, and concurrent with a major
exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art this fall. First published in
France in 1958 and then in the US in 1959, Robert Frank: The Americans is one of the
most influential and enduring works of American photography.
When Caroline Furneaux’s father Colin died suddenly in 2011, she discovered an archive of 35mm slides that he had shot during the 1960s. They were a beguiling series of beautiful women photographed in idyllic locations, mostly in Sweden, where he was working and living. It was during this time that he had first met Caroline’s Swedish mother, Barbro, yet hardly any of the photographs were of her.
'Glendalis' is a vivid narrative centered around the youngest daughter of a family, revealing intimate and universal human experiences and a poignant glimpse into the vibrant life of a lower-middle-class family, showcasing resilience, love, and the universal human experience. The photographs resonate deeply, portraying the spirit of Glendalis as she grows from a fierce child into a determined young woman.
